Now number 121 Beech Road vanished a long time ago.
It was one of our more elegant early 19th century properties which was set back from Beech Road, and went sometime in the 1970s.
For a long time after its demolition the land was left an open space, with the occasional suggestion that it could be a car park, a project which came to nought when the Corporation and the local traders couldn’t agree on a funding package.
There will be a few people who remember it, but sadly I am not one of them, which means it had gone before I arrived in 1976 or like so many things I was just not that observant back then.
Either way, there is little to mark its presence, save an entry in the tithe schedule for 1845, the Rate books and official maps.
If I have this right, it was Hunt Croft House and in 1845 was the residence of Thomas White who rented it from the Lloyd Estate.
With a lot of digging it will be possible to track its history through the 19th century till its demolition. I know that in 1969 it was occupied by a Frances. J Casse, and in 1911 by Mr and Mrs Chester, their five children, and a boarder.
The house had nine rooms with a biggish garden at the front, ending in a tallish stone wall which ran along Beech Road.
Back in the mid 19th century it looked at on fields. From the rear Mr White could look out on a field and orchard, while from his front windows he could gaze across to Row Acre, which stretched up to High Lane.
But by the 20th century the fields had all gone, and on either side of this fine old house were shops.
And here I must admit my mistake, because for years I had mistaken Croft House for Joel View which stood a little further down the road and had been built in 1859.
Many will remember Joel View as the property owned by J Johnny, which I assumed had been built much later.
I even compounded the mistake by arguing that the stone tablet which carried the name of Joel View had been salvaged from Mr White’s former home and been added to J. Johnny’s.
Now, even then I knew that this was pushing it, because our own historian Thomas Ellwood had written that Joel View was one of the new developments in the township at the end of the 1850s.
All of which goes to show that sometimes when it is easy to ignore the obvious and create an elaborate theory which is built on sand and that is really just a lead in to two pictures of Hunt’s Croft sent to me by Roger Shelley who took them sometime in the 1970s and which had lain in his negative box until yesterday.
The two images compliment an earlier one taken by N. Fife for which I don’t have a date for, but maybe from the 1960s.
That said it might be possible to date Roger’s pictures, from the shop which is up for sale. This had been Mr Westwell’s fruit and greengrocer shop in 1969, but sometime in the next decade became The Village Wholefood Shop.
It was still trading when I took a picture around 1979, showing the shop and the site which had once been Hunts Croft.
So that is it for now, although I am hoping Roger has more pictures.
Location; Chorlton
Pictures; Hunts Croft circa 1960s, courtesy of N Fife, the Lloyd Collection and again circa 1970s from the collection of Roger Shelley, and after it had been demolished circa 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
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| Hunts Croft, circa, 1960s |
For a long time after its demolition the land was left an open space, with the occasional suggestion that it could be a car park, a project which came to nought when the Corporation and the local traders couldn’t agree on a funding package.
There will be a few people who remember it, but sadly I am not one of them, which means it had gone before I arrived in 1976 or like so many things I was just not that observant back then.
Either way, there is little to mark its presence, save an entry in the tithe schedule for 1845, the Rate books and official maps.
If I have this right, it was Hunt Croft House and in 1845 was the residence of Thomas White who rented it from the Lloyd Estate.
With a lot of digging it will be possible to track its history through the 19th century till its demolition. I know that in 1969 it was occupied by a Frances. J Casse, and in 1911 by Mr and Mrs Chester, their five children, and a boarder.
 |
| Looking into the garden, circa 1970s |
Back in the mid 19th century it looked at on fields. From the rear Mr White could look out on a field and orchard, while from his front windows he could gaze across to Row Acre, which stretched up to High Lane.
But by the 20th century the fields had all gone, and on either side of this fine old house were shops.
 |
| Beech Road, circa 1970s |
Many will remember Joel View as the property owned by J Johnny, which I assumed had been built much later.
I even compounded the mistake by arguing that the stone tablet which carried the name of Joel View had been salvaged from Mr White’s former home and been added to J. Johnny’s.
 |
| Dating the picture |
All of which goes to show that sometimes when it is easy to ignore the obvious and create an elaborate theory which is built on sand and that is really just a lead in to two pictures of Hunt’s Croft sent to me by Roger Shelley who took them sometime in the 1970s and which had lain in his negative box until yesterday.
That said it might be possible to date Roger’s pictures, from the shop which is up for sale. This had been Mr Westwell’s fruit and greengrocer shop in 1969, but sometime in the next decade became The Village Wholefood Shop.
 |
| Hunt's Croft demolished, circa 1979-early 1980s |
So that is it for now, although I am hoping Roger has more pictures.
Location; Chorlton
Pictures; Hunts Croft circa 1960s, courtesy of N Fife, the Lloyd Collection and again circa 1970s from the collection of Roger Shelley, and after it had been demolished circa 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
